Moplah Rebellion

The history of Mujahid movement in Malabar goes back to the mid-1920s after
the fall of Ottoman Empire and Khilafat in Turkey. In 1921, the Malabar Muslims,
known as Moplahs, started a rebellion against the British raj that they treated
as enemies of Islam. The British suppressed the agitation of Moplah Muslims in
connivance with the Hindu landlords and deported some leaders of the rebellion
to Andaman Islands. The leaderless mob had been floating aimlessly. In early
1940s, the Indian National Congress veterans like Late Mr. Abdurehiman, and even
Mahatma Gandhi termed the rebellion as "Freedom Struggle." But some myopic
communal historians depicted it as an "anti-Hindu aggression," quoting some
isolated incidents from here and there in their apparent bid to give the
Movement a communal hue.

The Moplahs were illiterate and in their perception English was the language
of their enemy and hence education in that language a taboo. They hated even
their mother tongue, Malayalam, which they viewed the language of upper-caste
Brahmin landlords who treated Moplah Muslims and other lower-caste communities
as slaves solely to work in their paddy fields, rear cattle, and do all other
manual work on a pittance. Further during the Moplah rebellion, these landlords
helped the British to suppress the uprising against them. On this grudge,
Moplahs were reluctant to send their children to schools. Instead, the children
were admitted to madrasahs run by obscurantist mullahs. A few of them could read
and write Malayalam, that also exclusively written in Arabic script only. The
Muslim periodicals, had very few readers, since they were printed in the script
of Arabic-Malayalam.

It was during this time that some educated Muslim youths, who had been
influenced by the views of Wahabi Movement, came forward to persuade these
obscurantist parents to send their children to schools and get them educated.
Gradually, the Muslim community in Malabar, who had been immersed in steep
poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, and superstitions, could grasp the value of
education and the importance of their mother tongue, Malayalam and also the
official language, English. Education gave them a new status. The children of
the bigot parents were clever, mature and vigilant in fortifying the dignity of
their community and the country. Often they proved as real patriots, while
comparing them with the upper-caste Brahmin landlords who had been supporting
the British rulers as their protectors.